The Greatest Love is Within Me

The greatest love is within me. When I accept the possibility of this I can begin to choose to connect to this love instead of seeking it outside of myself through recognition and acceptance from people, places and things around me.

We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression.

Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.

It is where I get to meet me on the inside. Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be. The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness. The depth of my love is fathomless. It is there within me always and completely, regardless of whether I choose to connect to it or not. When I begin to acknowledge this Love I start to see and know myself differently. There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.

This loveliness is what I have begun to trust as being me, especially in the face of all the ways I have lived that have not been me. All these ‘not me’ ways have been built and honed over a lifetime to help me survive in the world as I knew it.

When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour. This is what I have known love to be. I went out of my way to get love and overrode the love I already was to do it: saying yes when I felt to say no; saying the nice thing when I felt otherwise; working hard when I felt exhausted; doing the right thing but feeling something was wrong; looking after other people but neglecting myself; getting good grades but feeling like a fraud. I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.

The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.

This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am. It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour.

By Adrienne Ryan, Brisbane, Australia

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Born and raised in Brisbane, Australia, I remember when electric typewriters were introduced and emails not yet thought of. I love laughing and working with teams on all sorts of things; walking, writing and putting my head on the pillow at the end of the day. Beauty is evident to me in the smallest act and the most mundane, everyday scenery - all of which digital cameras and smart phones allow great scope for photographing.

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536 Comments

Desiree Delaloye says:November 9, 2013 at 4:27 am

I love how you bring across the simplicity of true love Adrienne. Once connected to and lived, life becomes struggle-less. Not perfect but there is a flow that is gorgeous and confirming of the Love that we innately are. Beautiful.

Yes this blog feels so gentle, I feel the silkiness you describe in how you are expressing yourself through your words. It is a gift to feel as at this moment I am struggling and now I see this is a choice. My mind is going crazy and I feel awash within the tumult of unloving thoughts. Yet as I read your blog I feel another choice is possible here. I just need to go within feel it and make it.

You are so totally right Desiree, and once we begin to connect to that true love and feel the simplicity of the flow then we wonder just why we havn’t done it before! Actually, we have done it before, many many moons ago, so coming back to this true way of living feels familiar, like coming home, and I absolutely agree, it feels gorgeous and confirming of who we truly are.

Desiree you are absolutely right, once we connect to the love within, and live with that connection life becomes less of a struggle, there definitely is a a flow that is confirming of the love we are, it is an awesome feeling.

It is its simplicity that I most struggle with Desiree… as I begin to connect and let love flow and the simplicity comes, I start to question it, or doubt that it can last or that it is really happening… crazy. Learning to accept love and know that there is only an ever deepening version of that love to come, is what allows more love to be. If not, and the choice is mine, the misery and struggle sets in when the love, joy and simplicity are rejected. How powerful is that?

Awesome Adrienne “Learning to accept love and know that there is only an ever deepening version of that love to come, is what allows more love to be. If not, and the choice is mine, the misery and struggle sets in when the love, joy and simplicity are rejected. How powerful is that?”
Super powerful.

Yes Adrienne I recognize that so well. The simplicity of feeling the love inside me can feel so normal. And then I create some complexity to sabotage it. Crazy. But I am spotting it faster each time it comes around.

Adrienne, you said it in the first paragraph and again here. Accept love. With my mind I am very happy to accept this and don’t fight the notion of being love and all that you describe in this post BUT this does not deliver me to the love that I know I am. For me, accepting love, the love I already am is something I accept with my body. For a start I drop my shoulders and feel the center of my chest, feel other parts of my body and how I am aligning and holding them, then I have some space to feel my breathing and I remember I don’t have to try. In fact trying is counter-productive to accepting love as it suggests I have to work for it and prove I am worthy of it (oh I just felt the tinge of my Catholic school upbringing ‘Lord I am not worthy to receive you’). Through a recent Esoteric Yoga program with Marcia Owen I have connected more to my body, to surrender to and accept where I am at and to leave behind trying to connect as if I have to get somewhere.

Rather than reacting to the simplicity what if it were a message for us to say ‘there is even more simplicity to accept?’ Because if there is a reaction to the simplicity then there is still a part of ‘us’ that is not the true us because who we truly are is simple.

Hi Vanessa, it is inspiring for me too… we have had it backwards for so long, that love is something we get. To begin to allow for the possibility that it is something that has always been there within us all, to nourish and illuminate us with its warmth from the inside out, is a beautiful realisation to come to. It is like we have a banquet inside but we’re starving because we have lost our connection to it, no longer see it or know it to be there, but it always remains full, unwavering, abundant and there for us whenever the moment comes (as will for all of us) that we turn our gaze once more within and find what we have been looking for, seeking and searching endlessly outside for… the love we already are.

These are great words Adrienne:
“we have had it backwards for so long, that love is something we get. To begin to allow for the possibility that it is something that has always been there within us all, to nourish and illuminate us with its warmth from the inside out, is a beautiful realisation to come to.”
I know that I grew up thinking that love was something to get, and I spent my life seeking to do just that and got absolutely nowhere from doing so.
It was only when I encountered Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I was introduced to The Gentle Breath Meditation and my connection to love in me that I was able to let go of my frenetic searching and connect to a depth of love that is within my power to build on each day. This choice has revolutionised my life.

I had the same belief, that love was something I would get from others and boy oh boy, have I taken a long time to look for that love. I am so thankful for having Universal Medicine in my life, because the search is over and I know now that I am love. There is nothing to get, to do or to search for, it is there, every moment.

I love your way with words Adrienne, I can really feel your delicateness.
It is indeed a beautiful realisation that love is in everyone of us – “full, unwavering and abundant”. Our love never lets us down.

Oh Adrienne, we have been starving for too long, when we have the feast inside of us. So eloquently, put and so true. Your words are inspiring me and I feel my heart warming as I read them, thank-you.
For me, life is a constant reminder to stop and feel, to look inside myself, and to stop indulging in complications I have placed on the outside.

Important, inspiring and lovely sharing Adrienne. For a long time I didn’t even care about love, making it all about reaching out for the most stimulating things around me. And there are many of them! But what ever you take it is such pale substitute for the love inside us, the love inside me. Since I tasted that love, there is no turning back.

I so agree with you Vanessa, Adrienne has written about the simplicity of love when we reconnect to our own love and how beautiful that reconnection feels. That you could not possibly self harm your body, or for that matter anyone else.

Adrienne, I love how you write about “When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour. This is what I have known love to be.” I have recently become more aware of just how much this happens – this looking out-side for confirmation of me, with a smile, a frown, or just a raised eyebrow – the slightest gesture of this seeking outward just feels like as if I have a fishing rod and am hooking for others to tell me I’m okay, what’s going on is okay and all is right with the world, where everything is most certainly not alright and as you so rightly say, it’s not love. It’s great to spot it, to see the patterns of looking out at others’ responses to know how I am doing, as it sounds entirely crazy! Ariana Ray, UK.

A fishing rod is a great way of describing the need I have to hook in approval, recognition… anything that lets me know I’m seen… The attention doesn’t need to be good, it’s just the attention because until I get it, I feel invisible. Such a great way of learning how we set it all up for ourselves when we stop knowing that love is inside us all, and all we need ever focus on is being connected to this most amazing, endless, mighty source within… we don’t need to fish because the larder is full. When this is ‘forgotten’ or no longer seen (how crazy) we pick up one rod – or a million – and start fishing.

Yes Ariana, I agree how crazy indeed is it to be looking for all this approval from outside ourself. I was a slave to that for aeons… and at the mercy of others. Love the fishing rod analogy – at the mercy of whether the fish chooses to bite or not! What a huge relief that I now connect to a deep love inside me and I now appreciate myself.

Dear Adrienne, I love what you have shared, I can feel so clearly and deeply that it is felt, lived and shared from your own lived love within you. It simply made my whole body smile, to feel and know this gorgeous and silky love within me. When I read these words, “The greatest love is within me” and “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine” — my whole body shared, oh so very true. Thank you for the reminder of the grandest love that is within us all, and that nothing, absolutely nothing outside of us will ever bring or give us this love we all so deeply seek. There is nothing more yummy and gorgeous and so divine than the love that is naturally within us all.

Yes this is what I felt Adreinne when I read your blog, Silky spaciousness, I could feel me agreeing with all the things you did to look outside yourself for approval and recognition, and then when I read your words “I went out of my way to get love and overrode the love I already was to do it” I could really feel the craziness of this, it really didn’t make sense. Your words are simple and exquisite but also deeply profound and healing, thank you.

Awesome Alison, yes, a Silky Spaciousness as you say. It is extraordinary how we have looked everywhere outside of us for the love we already have inside us. It feels so beautiful to be coming back to my love again.

Hi Adrienne, I love this blog, it so describes where I am at and what I am working on towards accepting, ‘The greatest love is within me. When I accept the possibility of this I can begin to choose to connect to this love instead of seeking it outside of myself through recognition and acceptance from people, places and things around me.’ In the past I have used things I have done to feel good about myself, to identify with as making me an OK person – doing an engineering degree and being the only girl on the course, running my own business and, more recently, the fact that I have shed 42 kilos as a result of making healthy lifestyle choices. All of that is a distraction and takes me away from feeling the true me; they are what I have done, they are not who I am. Who I am is a loving, caring person with enormous vitality and a great sense of humour, lots of self doubt and heaps of potential. I find loving myself a challenge but I’m working on it, thanks to the many inspiring presentations and messages from Serge Benhayon and all the Universal Medicine Practitioners who have such endless patience with me. I find blogs such as yours inspiring as it reminds me who I am.

I can so relate to what you are sharing Carmel, the constant looking for stimulation outside to fill the void – instead of just following Adrienne’s simple advice to connect with the abundance inside. To feel a void where there is an abundance does not make sense in the first place. The choice to connect changes the game completely.

Carmel I love your very honest sharing and I can relate to making it about what I do instead of feeling the enormous love inside and accept that it is just there and this is what makes me, you and everyone grand. Adrienne’s blog is very inspirational and while reading I could feel my connection to my own loveliness and how normal and at the sometime enormous it is.

Awesome Adrienne. The truth and simplicity of love you present here is so gorgeous to feel. “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” Soooo beautiful thank you.

Thanks Adrienne – for me too there has been so much effort on getting something from the outside world, and involves so much wasted effort. It changes everything when you switch it around and all the love is already there inside me.

I so agree Simon – I have made my life so complicated by looking outside for love and approval when all along I needed to look inside and see that all was within waiting, as ever patiently. That is true love that has no need.

Thank you Adrienne this is so beauty-full and so inspiring. I can relate to everything you say about looking outside of myself for love and “seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have”.
For me this is a gradual un-foldment and I love the image of expansive silkiness which I will take with me into my day and re-connect to if I start to look outside of myself for love and approval.

Thank you Adrienne, what a beautiful blog. I also for a very long time looked for love outside of me, having changed this now with the knowing I have it is becoming more simpler to appreciate the love within. There are days when I get caught up and I have to remind myself to reconnect to this loveliness. But knowing that love is already inside of us makes a huge difference.

‘I am on one, the ‘it’ Ive longed for’ speaks very loudly to me. It helps explain why relationships have in the past seemed a little empty, not quite right, and left me still looking for a something else, a connection or memory of a connection or relationship that I missed. How could my relationships not leave me feeling this way if I did not have a true connection with me? How could I expect someone to bring me what I was missing, which was me.

Thanks Adrienne, this is beautiful. I’ve found that through developing my relationship with me and building from this love inside it’s brought so much more of a richness and joy to all my other relationships, as any neediness drops away.

I totally agree Helen and Amita, the more love I connect to and feel from within the more I feel this same quality in others. This has brought me to the understanding that if it has been hiding within me and underneath all my hurts and emotional behaviours then it would be exactly the same for everyone else. This understanding has brought much appreciation to me of myself and others and what actually makes us tick as human beings equally.

A totally gorgeous and divine article, love your expression and the way you describe your love that is innate in you was so tangible it allowed me to connect more deeply with me, awesome! Definitely printing this blog off to read again!

Great comment Rebecca. I too feel to save this blog as one of those amazing reminders and appreciations for what it means to be connected with my self. It’s so lovely, so divine, thank you Adrienne for your lovely words.

I can really relate to what you are saying here Adrienne. This morning I have woken from a good night’s sleep where I feel refreshed and rejuvenated and I can feel Love emanating from my heart. The incessant mind chatter has ceased and I can feel that today I just want to be very loving in everything that I do, taking care and not accepting any harshness or criticism towards myself or others.

Thank you so much Adrienne, such a beautiful blog to read and so inspiring, I quite often forget to return to myself and get overwelmed by life, but this is a superb reminder that it’s not that difficult and such a natural thing to connect to oneself.

Adrienne what powerful words you have written about inner love of ones self, so heartfelt and inspiring. Before I became a student of Universal Medicine, and meeting Serge Benhayon, I found it hard at times to love myself, and I used to say if their were two of me I couldn’t stand the other one. Things have changed and I feel I am getting to love myself more and more.

Gorgeous Adrienne, thank you for this expression. This is the 2nd time I have read your blog and love coming back to it because it actually does remind me of the silky amazing feeling that I know I can feel within me. Just a feeling of total…beingness (if that’s a word), whereby I can feel every part of me working together and generally feeling awesome.

What a gorgeous blog Adrienne – I can so relate to it looking outside for a lesser love and ignoring the true love within, with multiple fishing rods at multiple spots – super exhausting. You remind me today to continue to feel the exquisite tenderness and love that is me and if I find myself fishing well I can stop – I’m already full of love I just need to connect to it. There was never any need to look or try – it was and is always there.

Beautiful Mary…. always there is the warmth of who we are at heart, no matter how cold and hard we can behave, there is a light within that never wavers or cools.

Tenderness allows us to begin to trust this again, especially when we get to a point where we don’t think that warmth exists in us any longer….surrendering to a tender moment with ourselves is a bridge to that warmth.

I agree with you, Adrienne, tenderness for me is the gateway to feeling the love I am inside me. Like tenderness (in the way I move or in a thought) melts the hardness. And after the meltdown there is the undeniable love in each and every one of us. No matter what we have done, deep down inside we are all the same.

Another great point you make here Adrienne- sometimes when we have not acted with love it can be difficult to feel that it is still there inside us. Sometimes our own love is the most difficult to accept and it is in those moments, when we can surrender, that we get to feel it again.

Lovely blog, and it reminds me of how I’ve lived for a long time, checking that what I do and how am I is ok with others. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve begun to unpick it and I can still get caught, where I say yes because I want to be seen to bring value especially at work. Your blog is great as it reminds me that it’s about coming back and connecting to myself and bringing that first.

“I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.” Funny how we push ourselves so hard thinking that is the way to raise our self-esteem instead of simply feeling what is there deep within, our innate love-liness.

Funny and painfully sad when I look back at how I have treated myself, how I have bought into the beliefs and lies, how I have allowed myself to be tricked.
This inner loveliness was there all along, only now there is ‘a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.’ This I now embrace.

I embrace this love affair Adriennne,
‘the greatest love is within me. When I accept the possibility of this I can begin to choose to connect to this love instead of seeking it outside of myself through recognition and acceptance from people, places and things around me’. How lovely, what a relief.
‘Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.’
This is truly awesome…a movie on this love affair would be inspirational.

I for one am only just starting to realise that in order to truly receive love I need to be love first. It feels like a simple realisation, but I have to appreciate that this is not something we hear everyday, in fact, if ever. A simple test would be, when I close my eyes and am totally by myself, who is responsible for giving me love then? When I make choices for me that others might not like, how can I guarantee I will receive love? The truth is there staring at us in the face, we are the only ones responsible for ensuring we receive love, and as scary as that can sound there is nothing more real and fun then knowing your love is in your hands. The truth is we have been encouraged to believe love is something we need, that can be bought – love has been “commoditised”. This is so not true, as I have never seen a shop or website selling it, nothing has ever sold it but it has always been there. The reality is that we are this love, and it is for us to claim it.

Wow Phil!!!! This is a brilliant comment, no, much more than that,, PURE GOLD. This is the first line that blew my socks off “when I close my eyes and am totally by myself, who is responsible for giving me love then?” Thank you.

Adrienne this is just gorgeous! You have perfectly described me in my current state in how you used to feel. Although it’s important to have markers to show you how far you have actually come: I went scuba diving for the first time in a year last week – I am a diving pro, it’s my “thing” and I love it…. or so I thought! In actual fact, my body hated it! It was so bulky and rough and I felt like an astronaut trying to get about in all that heavy gear! In that, I realised quite how gentle I had become – I have so much more love to tap into yet but still, I have made amazing progress. Your blog just gives me more inspiration to continue, thank you 🙂

Awesome Rachael for you to be aware of how far you have come and to deeply appreciate that in many ways you have changed and become more tender with yourself. I find it hugely helpful when I take the time and care to confirm and appreciate such things about myself.

I still feel I am only at the beginning of grandest love affair of all but getting more into it. Your blog Adrienne is a great reminder to just carry on with more and more love and connection to self and then just watch how it unfolds in infinite ways.

Adrienne I feel this sentence is exquisite “I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.” It is so true for so many of us. It is wonderful to realise that the beauty and love is just there in us.

I love this article and on re-visiting it, I find more inspiration each time.
“Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.”
Awesome Adrienne.

Adrienne – this is the most glorious and lovely blog to read. I can feel the depth of your connection in every word of your expression.
There are sentences which just jump out at me all the way through – today this is – we don’t need to fish because the larder is full.
I will be re-reading this blog several times- it is so inspiring and great reminder to me that I am/ we are all love.
Thank you!

We have made love so complicated yet Adrienne you have made it so simple. When I read your blog and and read this line,
“It is where I get to meet me on the inside. Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be.” I felt myself connect to your words and my body let go of the tension of the day and my whole being became gentle and delicate like a butterfly. Thank you.

It is a gift to be aware of this deep love within, that I feel like I have rediscovered since being inspired by Universal Medicine. By feeling this love within, it allows me to appreciate me as I am – raw, open and real. It allows me to see the layers I add on to fill a role or a need or a standard – and simply let them go. All arising from a very simple point of connection, such as stopping to feel my toes and fingertips and how I actually am. Then to feel the love that is inside me and let others see it too.

There is such a gorgeous flow to your article Adrienne. I love the inclusivity of this line ….it is so grand and great yet it is completely common, because it is in everyone, not just the chosen few, but in every single, one – without measure or favour…. A joy to read, thank you

i had been searching for something, not knowing what, but knowing i wanted more. when i heard Serge Benhayon say that you have every thing you need inside of you, i was intrigued. as i started to truly connect to myself, i started to feel this ok-ness within. it has changed my life. thank you Serge.

A beautiful blog that I am starting to realise as I learn to connect to that warmth within me. If I listen to the outside and rely on others opinion in enters the cold feeling. More and more I am feeling and being pulled to build and hold onto that warmth. And the icing on the gluten-free cake is that when I connect to another in the same way I find that same warmth.

Beautiful and simple -“It (love) is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour”. I love this line and one to remember in every moment. thank you, Adrienne for sharing.

I love this line, ‘ I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have,’ as I can relate to finally getting to know my innate loveliness and my essence.

The more and more I stay with myself, stay connected and present the more I can feel that warmth and joy within. That love which resides in me is always there, it is my connection that allows me to go deep in and feel its beautiful warmth. As I have come to understand this I am no longer looking for appreciation and acceptance outside of me.

This blog really turns love around and upside down – how different to the way we are taught and shown what love is – ‘the grandest love affair any human being can imagine’ is something well worth connecting to.

“When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok ” I so know this one. Loving me first knowing I can then fully love others makes so much sense – otherwise are we “loving” or is it neediness? Feeling the warmth in my heart when I connect and am present is such a beautiful feeling – why would I choose to stray from this?

I just re-read this and wowzas did I need to!! Learning to feel the love inside is the thing I am finding difficult at present Adrienne…. I have such a momentum of looking outside for it. It is becoming so clear how this underpins all my “issues” though so I am making progress towards being able to introduce me to me!

Lovely Rachael that you are re-visiting this article and and seeing how this underpins all your issues. I know from my own experience it really does all come back to our relationship with ourselves. The moment I spot the slightest needyness in myself I know I need to come back to me, to my connection and my self-appreciation.

‘The grandest love affair’ is the one we can have with ourselves, this is presenting a way of looking at life that turns around all our preconceptions of life as the world tells is it can only be lived. We always consider that ”The grandest love affair’ is something that has to come from some one and it is bestowed on us if we are very lucky. Yet here you are presenting the view that ‘The grandest love affair’ is inside us all along! Now that would make a dent in the card sales over Valentines day, or perhaps we would just send ourselves love cards instead!

‘I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have’ so wonderfully sums up the outer seeking, connecting to and feeling that all we need we already have, is both revelatory, simple and beautiful to feel.

Awesome blog Adrienne, thank you for writing it. There are a lot of lines I relate to. This one stands out: ‘I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.’ Same same here. The word APPRECIATION is very relevant to see my own innate delicateness. I am great at appreciating others and see how beautiful they are, but can forget to appreciate myself. This is work in progress.

It is so much where I want to go, the glimpses of what you say that I have lived have made such a difference in my life that I need to go back to that love, that preciousness, that delicate exquisiteness that I do not want to harm with a rough movement or a harsh word or a hurtful, self-bashing thought, that same quality i would have with a baby or a little child once I connect with their natural tenderness. I also appreciate that you all the time say: “the growing awareness”, “when I begin to reconnect” so it is a work in progress, we all have it, that love and we are in the process of accepting that love more and more and with more consistency into our lives again. Lovely blog that brings a breeze of fresh air that takes away the pain and leaves the beauty of the love inside. Thank you Adrienne.

Adrienne, this is simply beautiful. You have delicately, yet firmly and with utter clarity expressed the difference between looking for love on the outside and living it from within. Thank you. This blog was delightful to read.

“The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” A wonderful article very grand and spacious and very simple also. Felt great reading it – expansive. Thank you

You have described so well what it’s like to connect to the love inside. I agree with your words, Adrienne, “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.”

“The greatest love is within me” is so true Adrienne, it is an instant stop to all the looking outside of ourselves when we realise we already are love and it is there for us to re- connect to when ever we choose. I could relate to struggling with the simplicity this brings too, I couldn’t accept how easy life became once I realised I no longer needed to look outside myself for love. “I went out of my way to get love and overrode the love I already was to do it” …..all that hard work and struggle to over-ride the grandest love affair of all time, the love that resides within me.

‘I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour.’ Looking to the outside all the time is draining our energy, and we do it in so many subtle ways, but allowing our love to grow from the inside out is energising as we appreciate and honour the glorious beings we truly are.

Carmel I love what you have expressed here – that living the love we are on the inside energises us as we appreciate and honour the glorious beings we truly are. This highlights to me that this is a big way to address the exhaustion that I find myself in when I have not been choosing to live this way.

The silky loveliness of you comes through every word Adrienne and opens the connection to the silky loveliness in the reader.
What a draining exercise our lives become, eyes turned ever outward for the smile of approval (Oh! I’m OK), the frown of disapproval (Oh no! I’ve failed!). How do we ever get through life on this dreadful merry-go-round of ups and downs at the whim of every passing opinion.
And as you have shown with this blog, written from the silkiness that is your essence, there is another way. Delicate, sensitive, self appreciative and so very loving.
Thank you Adrienne for letting go of nice to bring us the beauty of who you truly are.

Gorgeous Rachel. Through reading your comment I became aware that I also look for recognition in the mirror! If I’m feeling discontent or disconnected I look into the mirror to assure myself that I am still beautiful. Or if I am not looking beautiful I become angry and frustrated with myself. It is now obvious to me that it is the same energy, it’s OUTSIDE recognition and overriding the true beauty within. I am enough.

“There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought…. All these ‘not me’ ways have been built and honed over a lifetime to help me survive in the world as I knew it.” You speak for me too, Adrienne! I noticed many years ago that the more I loved someone, the more beautiful they look to me. Now I understand that it’s the love inside myself that grows and allows me to recognize and appreciate the same amazing love in others, and that sure is beautiful!

Your beautiful exquisite quality is deeply felt through this blog and at the same I could also feel depth and loveliness of my Love. It is so true that our connection to our Love within is equally grand in us all, not needing any recognition for the Joy that is felt through our own unique expression. Thank you Adrienne for sharing your beautiful way.

Thank you Adrienne! Very inspiring. We often see this love diminish in children as they grow and yet we are so inspired by it at the same time. It’s so fantastic they have another true role model in you (and me).

Adrienne what you’ve shared here is so simple, that the greatest love is inside. Yet I know how I felt growing up and it most certainly didn’t feel like that! I chased love from everyone I could trying to find someone to fill that empty void. Yet when I look back the one thing I didn’t do was connect and feel the possibility that the love was already there in me. With so much of society, the media and general understanding being to “get loved” no wonder we “forget” we already are love.

So beautifully expressed Adrienne. I always appreciate how simply you express the joyfullness in life – in a way that each word is like the part of a melodic song. ‘The depth of my love is fathomless’. Simply beautiful.

Thank you for this amazing reminder-Not being connected to the love I am, actually uses the outside constantly to give me something that I need. Because I don´t like using the others to make me happy, besides the fact that it is super exhausting, I feel the urgency in connecting to my own love. Actually reading your blog everyday would be a great support to not loose focus on that ever.

“I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness;” Wow! Adrienne, this really speaks to me and how I was so desperately craving love and approval from others that I was blind to my own innate loveliness. My love that has always been there just waiting for me to say ‘Hello’ continues to grow and allows me to feel the love that is there, but often hidden, in everyone else.

When coming back to this article to reread I was so stuck by the amazingness of the photograph of the rose at the top. It is absolutely stunning and couldn’t be more appropriate to visually describe the love you are talking about, Adrienne. Our own innate loveliness is as grand, perfect, delicate, tender, fragile, silky, fragile and complete as the rose shows. The white edges contrasting with the deepening pink hues of the petals is a stunning detail combined with the richness of the colour with the overall form. There is such power and fullness to it and it shows me the possibility of my own power when I allow my own loveliness to come out and express in full.

Yes, Rachel the rose is so beautiful you can almost smell its perfume. And, wow, there is such power and fullness in your words too. What has come to me right now, is that our hearts are like a rosebud waiting to come into full bloom, like the rose in the picture. Thank you for expressing in the fullness of you, you’ve lightened my day!

I love how you expressed “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine”. I agree in full Adrienne and if we choose never to leave ourselves this love affair has no end.

….’and if we choose never to leave ourselves this love affair’ this grandness continues to grow and expand within ourselves and inspire others with the awareness that this same grand love lies within them equally just waiting to be reconnected to.

Your first sentence sums it all up for me, awesome, and thank you Adrienne for the reminder that anytime, anywhere, I can choose to come back to the love inside me.

And I love this too… “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine”, very profound. I feel that many of us feel that this love is something that is unreachable (even though it is inside us), but it just takes a little commitment, every day to connect to ourselves and to brush the doubt aside.

Adrienne, how you have described the ways you looked outside of yourself for love is so relatable. After many years of hearing that the Greatest Love is Within, I have allowed myself to struggle much of the time to accept this as true. That I am enough just as I am without having to do or prove anything. One thing I am aware of is that the more resistance I have to accepting this the more my body aches when I go into my mind to work things out. When we accept Love there is always an ease that follows in our lives and our bodies are able to let go.

It was as if my world stopped, completely still, as soon as I read the first glorious sentence of this blog, and I cant help but think that this is a sentence that should indeed stop the world.
I am imagining a love song made up only of the sentences of this blog. Contrast that with the so called love songs that are in fact played world wide day after day.

Adrienne Ryan you are absolutely awesome. I just love your article and every word that you have expressed. Thank you for stating the truth that, “We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression”. Just beautiful.

I love reading this blog again Adrienne! It is like you unwrap the protective layers of seeking others approval for your ‘survival’ only to find that your best friend who can never leave you, is right inside and approval fades into insignificance! I also love this blog because I felt you were writing it especially for me…reminding me that despite the protection and seeking approval the depth OUR love is fathomless. We have it all!

“The greatest love is within me. When I accept the possibility of this I can begin to choose to connect to this love instead of seeking it outside of myself through recognition and acceptance from people, places and things around me.” I love this Adrienne. Learning to love myself is an on-going process as I deepen my connection with myself. As I naturally reflect this outwards, it then is reflected back towards me, without my old neediness and ‘wanting people to like me’ attached.

Adrienne are you sure you’re not a mind reader or fortune teller because you have just nailed what goes on for me. Constantly needing that approval to feel ok, or for me to know they like me, but by doing all of this is forget about my loveliness and deep love that I have for my self. This is one awesome blog.

Adrienne I love the way you capture the truth of love and how we feel about it. What stands out is that so many of us can develop a similar mis-interpretation and therefore mis-representation of what love truly is. I truly love feeling as I read, how you describe what love is. As you say this is for everyone equally without favour. It requires nothing more than acceptance and no in put or interpretation from any other source. How magical is that?

This is such a powerful statement Adrienne and I can feel that this is absolutely true.’The greatest love is within me’, it is wonderful to have this reminder that I need not look outside of myself for love.

Wow – what a clear message – “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end”. This rings so true, thank you Adrienne, for writing so beautiful and summing it up with such simplicity.

‘The depth of my love is fathomless. It is there within me always and completely, regardless of whether I choose to connect to it or not.’

Coming to an acceptance that this is true for me, however much evidence to the contrary my mind gleefully collects, has brought such a change to my life. For however long people thought the world was flat and adjusted their behaviour accordingly, the simple fact is it just wasn’t!

Your blogs ooze the exquisiteness you so gorgeously express. I can not help but weep at my own overridden love inside and acknowledge all the false beliefs I had chosen to know love as. I am too numbed by food most of the time to feel this constant and connected love within but I know it is only a choice to get to that place and feel everything that is me and LET GO of what is not. Thank you Adrienne.

“This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am. It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour.” Adrienne, thank you for speaking the truth with such simplicity & love and with such power. How divine we are, all equally so.

hi Adrienne, I like this quote, ‘There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.’ It reminds me how finely tuned and balanced we naturally are and how we can so easily disturb that through our thoughts, words and actions. It clearly becomes a choice to maintain as best as possible, this balance we have within.

Adrienne, a very beautiful blog. Your words here, This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time, rings so true. When you are in the absolute gorgeousness and joy of your own true self, it does actually feel so very, very normal, and is not special, but absolutely divine.

We are all taught to look for love outside of ourselves, and yet connecting to our own love holds far greater riches. ‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.’
We are so often used to life being a struggle and survival, it almost seems too good to be true to say that we can let go of all of that. We make the struggle when here love is, available to us all. It makes no sense to keep falling for the struggle. Survival cannot be the way to live.

Totally Agree Ariana, I too have made struggle and survival my way in the past and now I am clearing this from the way I spend my days. Seeing that the struggle and survival was a way that I could make myself less than who I am, and to dull the great light that I have the potential to bring to this world.

So many wonderful ways to Love and celebrate in what you share Adrienne thank you. This one I’m claiming for myself today and always. “There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.”

Adrienne this blog is a beauty, thank you. I used to look for love outside of me and actually put myself on a ‘learning to be lovely’ programme because I was so far away from myself – but now I can, and am continuing, to feel myself as the “expansive silkiness” that you write about 🙂

Adrienne- this is awesome. I want to have a big love affair with me too! I am just feeling how the world focuses on loving the external things and how I feel about myself is often a reflection of this. I can be sucked in by worldly things which stop me truly loving and feeling the real me! Thank you for sharing this.

I have just completed a short Esoteric yoga course – this has helped me to appreciate and feel what is written here. “This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time”, rings so true for me. Thanks Adrienne, your blogs are great.

It is so beautiful to read Adrienne’s blog and all the replies. It really brings it out for all to see how we are all connected through and with this love that is equally inside us all. It doesn’t matter if I am a bit disturbed by the complications that my head wants to go into from time to time, I know that I am that love inside. And it simply is, always there to connect to.

Gorgeously expressed Adrienne, the love that you live emanates from every word you have written, and through your words I can’t but help feel the love that is within me… Silky, spaciousness abundant love, presence and strength… Absoulte Gold.

Adrienne, I found this line so delicious that I could’ve quite gone without the rest of the banquet, “The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness.” Aahhh, so much love felt there as its truth and warmth resonated throughout my body….yet of course, I read on for love begets more love as you so beautifully and delicately expressed. I also appreciated your links to the struggle and the survival mode we go into when we choose not to be with our own inner treasure chest of love, and instead look without. It is crazy and more and more, as I sometimes catch myself about to fall into this trap,I realise it’s so unnecessary and the struggle clears just like a cloudy day! Many thanks, this is a blog I shall be returning to often.

Adrienne you found exactly the right word to describe about the love that lies within. I love the sentences “There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.” This is exactly how I can feel it in myself as well. So I love all your words and feel inspired. Thank you so much.

On re-reading this blog, this line – “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine,” – I recalled a conversation I had with a lovely lady I met during a course I was doing. She noticed that I looked exceptionally radiant and joyful on this particular day, so she asked me, had I met someone, or was I in love, and I said, actually I am in falling in love, with myself. Her response was, “oh”. I told her I had started a self love and self care program with myself and have been really appreciating myself more. Every now and then through the course, she would look at me and just smile, she could feel my own appreciation and she was appreciating that reflection. She never asked me more about it but the smile on her face clearly showed on some level she got it.

Thank you Adrienne, I can really feel these words “working hard when I felt exhausted;” I have been pushing through recently when my body is asking me to rest and stop. I also love this line, “This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time.” this is so true. I just love feeling love.

Exactly Natalie and the more I learn to connect to the endless supply of love that is already within me the more I accept that ‘Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine’.

“There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.” Wow, thankyou Adrienne, I feel you write for all of us. This quote really supported me to feel just what self-bashing thoughts do, they really do disturb and tear down the delicateness of the love we are.

So simple Adrienne but oh so powerful
I loved your expression in this blog, thank you
I particularly loved the following words, they are inspirational and a great reminder to nurture and grow this love affair.
“Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine”

I really loved this sentence “I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.” It’s beautiful to feel that all we need to do is stop looking for love on the outside and the overflowing wealth of love on the inside starts gushing out. I now see that most if not all of the discomforts I have ever felt in my life, in people around me and in my body are all just a consequence of holding my loveliness back – and all I need to do it state that.

A true love story Adrienne. Imagine if we had a movie depicting all the hilarious and at times tragic ways we go about looking for love outside of us, only to realise that it was right there inside of us all along. Would it be a comedy or a drama?

When I read this line I could feel the letting go to feel this in me: “the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought. Thank you Adrienne for the beautiful opportunity to deepen my connection.

I felt to read this again today. I can feel at times that I am slipping into old patterns of needing recognition to feel good about me and yesterday I felt a hardness in my responses to my work colleagues. Today as I go about my work I am rekindling my love affair with myself and feeling the beauty of me within me.

The description of ‘love within having no connection to survival’ is such a beautiful reminder to keep letting my guard down and letting others in. For within the tenderness of my heart there is no no need for protection.

I agree Jenny, these words from Adrienne, ‘the love within having no connection to survival’ are so beautifully true. When you are connected to the power of love, it’s an all encompassing and complete feeling, where nothing is ever needed, you are simply, enough.

Just so gorgeous. I have read this blog many times. A beautiful support for bringing me back to me. This line did just that this evening ‘This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am’. so beautiful thank you Adrienne.

Thank you Adrienne for the reminder that everything I have always wanted is already within me. What reading this blog reminded me of was that the Gentle Breath Meditation is a way in which to just sit in that feeling of me. I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything to feel what I am searching for – a feeling of warmth from within me.

Such a beautiful read Adrienne and so timely. Today I have been feeling many ideals I have about myself and how I should be to be amazing. Then I realised that actually all that amazingness is already inside me I just did not feel it because I thought it would be something different. My amazingness is just there waiting to be felt and deeply appreciated and celebrated!

Such a great blog Adrienne, you enrich the world with your blog. Beautifully put: it starts out with accepting the possibility that there is this endless love within me. Perhaps this journey starts out as just a mental concept, but that is all right. I realize now, after being a student of Universal Medicine for many years, that I have just started to realize how big this love is. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, the words just came through me, not from my head saying: I love myself. It was like wake-up shock, feeling I could actually say this to myself, and feel the truth about it resonating through my body. For me another big step to make my life really about love.

I connected with this quote “This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am.” I have felt this, there have not been any bells or whistles, but it has felt like a connection to deep consistent warmth within myself. It is true – ‘normal’ can feel amazing.

This is a beautiful piece of writing Adrienne, one I will revisit many times as it is an absolute joy to read. It reminds us of the depth of love that we are and takes us right back there if we have strayed – to bath in the vibrancy and glow of the (and as you so eloquently wrote)..” the deep consistent warmth within myself”

Equally as beautiful Kathleen with what you have shared. I love this – “It reminds us of the depth of love that we are and takes us right back there if we have strayed….” it articulates how it feels when I have strayed from seeing myself as love but how in an instant, when I choose this for myself again, it is there.

I loved your comment Kathleen. This beautiful blog written by Adrienne Ryan is indeed a great blog to read when I have strayed reminding me of the truth of who I truly am; that is, the love within me hasn’t gone anywhere; I simply make a choice to connect to this love I know is there inside me.

When I read this it feels like the Wisdom of the Ages, a Universal Truth that speaks to all of us equally. My whole body says “Yes” when I read these beautiful words. What a blessing your writing is Adrienne. Thankyou for putting into words what our hearts know is true but could not yet articulate.

This is such a gorgeous piece of writing, thank you Adrienne,
I love where you say that love ‘struggles not’.
Of course it cannot, it just is, how do I keep forgetting that? Haha, well not so much these days but yes for a long time my forgetting was huge and so was the struggle.
Your words are a beautiful reminder for all.

Thank you Adrienne. As I read this blog I could feel a connection to my own innocence and a flicker of understanding of the love you write about. I look forward to connecting more to the love within me inspired by the love I can feel emanating from you.

Adrienne, as always simply beautiful! There are so many golden comments in your article it was difficult to choose; but at this moment the one that resonates the most with me is this line, “I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.” Thank you for sharing with us all you have discovered regarding the great love that resides within you and equally in all of us.

Great article Adrienne, such a simple description of how true love realy works, and it is so awesome to realize that this is in everyone, we only have to connect and nurture this love to live it everyday.

The simplicity of love is really what makes it most challenging – there is no investment, no attachment, no achievement, it does not make you special or different or sets you apart. It just is. It seems we often rather struggle so we can be defined by the drama than surrender and become at one with the ALL.

Adrienne -your list of the ways we look for love outside of ourselves is very revealing. but even more revealing is the simplicity of connecting to our innermost for the love we can live everyday. I ask myself why do I not allow myself to be this simplicity its exhausting looking for love elsewhere!

I just love this writing.
What could anyone say to us that could be better and more restoring than letting us know that ‘the greatest love is within [us]……it is there within [us] always and completely’?

Recently I had the realisation ‘I’m falling in love’. It came as a personal newsflash that stopped me in my tracks, the person I fell in love with was ME! The true meaning of being in love. As has been expressed here by your sharing Adrienne thank you.. “delicate exquisiteness” – YES!

Such a beautiful blog to read and feel inspired by, I especially love this line –
“Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.” -Just gorgeous, thank you Adrienne.

“I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour.” This really touched me when I read it. I know the Love inside me is all I need but I still catch myself looking outside of myself for reassurance that I am loved, that I am ok in someone else’s eyes. To come back to Me more fully I feel this needs to be a focus of mine. Thank you for the timely reminder, Adrienne. I love all that you have shared here in the way you have shared it, with such delicateness and grace. It is so YOU!

I love your blog Adrienne, you say it all in such simple words. I know all the ways of being not me you describe and i have also tasted the yummy quality of the love i am. Learning to surrender to all that already is more and more and to not get caught in the forever lurking struggle and trying is an everyday work in progress for me. But when it flows..how easy and beautiful life is!

Hi Adrienne, Our education including religious education never shares the depth of the love we are within us. It gives us knowledge to achieve in the world but it never shows us how to be who we are. There is definitely a marketing gap here! ‘ The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.’ Just beautiful.

‘It is there within me always and completely, regardless of whether I choose to connect to it or not.’
I love how you invite us all equally to reconnect to this love inside. And I love the simplicity of it. The part I have been struggling with is being worth that simplicity and allowing my life to be without the identification of working ‘hard’ to be worthy.

All my life I have worked ‘hard’ to be worthy, and it hasn’t worked, and will never work. This ceaseless desire to want others to love me and wanting them to respect me, is exhausting. The only way now, I have discovered, with thanks to Universal Medicine, is to ditch the drive to impose on others and go within and connect to what has been inside me all along, all the love, wisdom, truth and true worth that I will ever want or need.

“It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour”. How amazing is it to learn that something can be grand & great and common at the same time – and in this case within us at all times. Often if something is grand & great it is perceived to be something that is experienced once in a lifetime, or on a special holiday or event but not part of our daily life. Thank you for inviting us and reminding us that a great and grand love exists within us at all times and it is always our choice to connect to it.

It’s true, Adrienne, connecting to the love within IS the grandest love affair because from there pours the love for all other people and things. It is an all-encompassing love affair, not just with one other person!

Great reminder, Dianne, that loving others starts with loving yourself first. Like a so many things in life, it starts with firstly bringing it to you, then the rest of the world follows. It feels I have just started this grandest love affair with my self and I so much looking forward to getting to know my self on a deeper level and deepen that love each and every day. Also to see how that reflects on my relationship with my partner, friends, family, people as well. What a journey.

You are right, Sandra. Not something I realise thoroughly in each moment. But then also not thinking about it otherwise it could become a mental heavy thing for me, and this should be light and playful.

Your blog is a beautiful reminder of the simplicity of the grandness of the love that is right there inside of each and every one of us. Within this love there is no seeking, just an allowing. It is so easy to get caught up in looking for love outside of ourselves, I know I do. However, it is very simple to come back, to re connect to our body, our gentle breath and be open to feeling the beauty that we are.

This is so gorgeous Adrienne and such a beautiful reminder for us all – that our love is always there within us, never going anywhere and never lost – all we need to do is let ourselves feel and connect with it.

Adrienne, you and what you share are divine. It is so beautiful when reading to feel the love and loveliness within. As you say while amazing to feel it’s common – so common that when reading your expression of this I am reminded I can feel it in me. Thank you.

Its sublime how you describe this feeling as a silkiness Adrienne. I can really relate to that. Your words convey so beautifully that it is not a feeling that can be boxed in, and it has no end. Amazing how this loveliness lives in us all, just waiting for us to savour its grace.

I love rereading your blog Adrienne as you bring such simplicity and wisdom. The worthiness has been a big one for me and at times I still get caught in the thinking I need to have done something to deserve love. But then I realise how ridiculous it is to think I need to do something to be worth something that I am already am..always, no matter what I choose it is there for me to reconnect to at any moment.

This is something that we should confirm in ourselves every single day Adrienne. How can there be anything grander than the love that is so alive within us. It is the ultimate irresponsibility to then seek ‘fillers’ or replacements of this love from elsewhere – and to blame others for not bringing it to us – when it is loving ourselves that we want more than anything.

“There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought”, a lovely sentiment Adrienne, sometimes when I feel very still, even breathing can be a disturbance! Doing something physically abusive to my body can be damaging, but my thoughts can be equally damaging too, so I am beginning to say no to them, and “saying yes when I should have said no”, this is a hard one, but the more I connect to my own delicateness the more it feels awful when I say yes and should have said no, so it’s time for me to deepen the love affair I have with myself.

After years of dis-connection from myself, I am learning to appreciate that it will take time to feel that utter depth of love from within 100% of the time. The more glimpses I feel, encourage me to continue this amazing journey to reconnect to the true love I know I am.

Studying and learning to be a master in tenderness, your blog is must read material for me. What triggered me specially this time is how delicate you are in treating this tenderness inside you. You mentioning that you watch yourself on self-bashing thoughts is a level I have and chose to go to as well. I observe that I can still be very critical towards myself, though it is getting less now, realizing deeply how it destroys the connection to my tenderness. Fortunately it doesn’t effect the tenderness itself.

Beautiful blog Adrienne, I feel the most challenging part is the simplicity of love, we are not used accepting that something is just there. We are used to work on it and make it complicated instead of accepting love is. And I read your blog more than once, this is what is pure gold ‘It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour’ Everyone? Yes Everyone.

The marvel of our bodies and how they constantly give us such awesome confirmation don’t they, when you don’t immediately catch that unloving thought or comment about yourself, the feeling that you get, is most definitely not loving or supportive in any way, shape or form, which is such a contradiction away from how our naturally lovely and loving selves would want us to feel. Which is, undeniably, absolutely precious.

Beautifully expressed Julie. What you have shared is absolutely priceless but at the same time is making me ponder on the question why on earth would we ever take ourselves away and hold ourselves back from expressing this natural and exquisite love that we all innately and equally are?

I have just reread your blog Adrienne and am struck by your very powerful words;
“This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am. It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour”

I have read this blog before, but I don’t know that I truly ‘got’ what it is you have shared until now. It has taken me a long while to get what love is. I used to think it was excitement, enthusiasm, or attention. I thought it was something you had, but could lose at the drop of a hat if you put a foot wrong. I thought it was dependent on doing the right thing for another, also dependent on what that other person themselves thought was the right thing (writing that sentence was confusing so I have come to feel that that can’t possibly be what love it!).
I don’t know what is really was that happened for me to change my way of thinking; perhaps it was that I stopped thinking and moved to feeling my body. If I do nothing but feel my body, I am met with something that is far removed from the nothing that I am doing. I am met with a vastness of something quite tangible, a tinglyness that runs through my veins and nerve endings, something that feels very simple and complete. What if the word for these feelings is ‘love’? Have we got the wrong definition for ‘love’? I o believe we have! For this love that I feel is grand, is great, and is not just inside me, but through me and around me. It is possible to feel this every second of the day, and that is magnificent.

Interestingly, I had to read and re-read this article as my mind kept wonderng off…perhaps a sign of not wanting to take responsibility for not chosing to be my own greatest love…This Line caught my eye, ‘When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown.’ So so true!

I can so relate to this sentence Adrienne: “When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown.” I know the feeling of wanting to be liked very much and I have been living like that for a long time. I am now learning that being liked when I choose to do things I myself do not like or do not feel like doing is not worth it. I am learning that the greatest love is indeed inside me and when being with this love and honouring it, I feel there is not such a need for being liked. It is such a joy that comes from living knowing all I need is inside myself.

What stands out re-reading your beautiful blog out for is the word “allow”. When I allow myself to be, when I allow this love to be, it just pops up, wherever I was at that moment. It never amazes me that I return to it so easily nowadays, where in the past I never even knew it existed in the first place. I feel a deep gratitude that I have learned – re-learned – this capability as presented in the teachings of Serge Benhayon.

Your words Adrienne allowed me to drop into and feel the silkiness of my own love within. It was a beautiful experience where there was no anxiousness or need. There was no fanfare just a welcome home.

Reading your blog Adrienne is a very confirming act of love, as I can feel the exquisite beauty and delicateness that you describe and feel.
Now when I am still and close my eyes, feeling the love is effortless. Love has no need, no drive or goals, it asks us to surrender to ourselves.

Adrienne you are so right- seeking love from outside is exhausting especially when we already have it. I am on the journey back to me and feeling what you have written is a beautiful confirmation that I am on the right path.

I too was searching for love outside of myself, I was seeking recognition, approval and acceptance from people. This left me feeling exhausted, resentful and angry, mostly with myself. I couldn’t understand why I would get upset so easily. I am now slowly learning to reconnect to the amazing love within and I feel like a new person. I no longer try to please people or worried about expressing my feelings and learning to appreciate myself. What you have shared is a beautiful reminder for me. ‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end’. Thank you.

Adrienne, this blog is so beautiful to reread and connect to. Your inner wisdom comes shining through. I love the words, “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.”

Isn’t it crazy that life is structured in a way to take us away from this natural way of being as quickly as possible when we are young? It makes the focus all about what we do rather than who we are, brings in comparison and all forms of separative ways creating feelings of lack and isolation. How beautiful that you have re-discovered this loveliness inside of you and set yourself free.

It is so ingrained in us to look outside of ourselves for recognition, acceptance. This way of being is fostered in us from a very young age. Not to feel from within ‘that we are it’, we know everything we need to and have within us the love, confidence and joy, always.

I can relate to so many of the ‘what is not love’ you have shared, that I dived head first into for most of my life. Pleasing people, waiting for approval, directing towards certain people and not others, giving but not allowing real love back to me. It is crazy because I can also remember as a child knowing the grand love you have re-discovered – a love that doesn’t need anything or have to do anything and is unshakeably steady inside me and in everyone else too.

I loved reading this again Adrienne. It is so true that our love within is actually ordinary, as we all have an equal grandness within, and connecting to this is the most natural thing we can do for ourselves. Yet each of has our own unique way of expressing this divinity.

I love reading what you write Adrienne- thank you. As I read I just love the silky, luxurious feel of how our own true love actually is inside us.
“It is where I get to meet me on the inside. Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be. The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness. “

From the moment we are born we know ourselves to be love and nothing less. We are shown and taught as we get older, that love is something outside of ourselves, something another gives to us. Life is then spent looking for ‘true love’ or a ‘soul mate’ when in fact it is within us all along and always was. As you say Adrienne ‘Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.’

The love that I knew before becoming a student of Universal Medicine was one that required hard work to maintain. It was entirely dependent on others. It was external to me, a fleeting feeling at the mercy of events or people, something I had no grip on, that could be withdrawn with a vindictive reaction. Understanding that ‘I am love and worthy of love’, while still a work in progress, is amazingly liberating.

Such a gorgeous blog – reading it just brings me back to what I know myself to be: so lovely and gorgeous and like you said: “There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.”

The start of your truly beautiful blog is already a great start for people to begin connecting to that inner love. This subject is so foreign to most people, and it indeed is a simple start to just start out with accepting it is there, even though they don’t feel a thing. From there it can build. Very practical start-up advice, Adrienne.

I love this blog as it clearly points out the ways in which we strive to get love from outside of ourselves and yet we have all that we need already within us and theres no effort required, other than to choose it. Very inspiring.

An interesting description, the word ‘silky’ stepped out for me…”It is where I get to meet me on the inside. Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be.” I sat here and wondered if that is a feeling I have, we all have different ways of expressing of course, but wondered can I feel that…and I thought yes, ‘silky’ is a great description, of that connection that we all of the potential to build and enjoy. I also enjoyed how you write of how you ”get to meet me on the inside”. The whole blog supports connection with ourselves.

I like these words as well ”get to meet me on the inside”. In my life I was so often not at home, not in my body, and since I’m more connected, I love to meet myself on the inside, to spend time with me. It is really time to claim myself in full.

Adrienne the way you write is beautiful. I felt held along the way as the words bathed me…how gorgeous and true your words are…”The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness. The depth of my love is fathomless. It is there within me always and completely…”

‘There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.’ Beautiful and inspiring words that are so different from the hard way many of us are living. We cripple ourselves with our self-bashing thoughts, and appreciating ourselves in full is a great way to change that.

‘We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression.’ – I love this Adrienne as for me the riches in this world are the Divine expressions that come from the same source of inner Love and wisdom that is shared between us all. And when we walk connected to the greatness of our love within, as the claimed equal sons of God we are the riches of this world.

Thanks Adrienne for this blog where, as a reader, I could feel your tenderness flowing through in your expression. Self love is a beautiful gift to ourselves which then shines out and inspires others and is way too precious to keep hidden away.

Adrienne, this blog is so profoundly beautiful. I have a feeling I will be back to read it again and again as the depth of the connection to the love that you are is very deeply felt in reading this, which in turn reminds me of that same quality that is equally in me, just waiting to be reconnected to. Thank you.

thanks for sharing some of the ways that we bury our own love and do something that pleases the world/people. Things like being nice instead of being truthful, saying yes when we wanted to say no, getting good grades and feeling like a fraud. I know exactly what you mean. These things don’t work. The more I accept that I am love the more it can come out and greet the world.

Very inspiring blog Adrienne, the world would certainly look at things differently, if self love was the foundation people built their lives on and what effect would this have on all of our relationships with others, friends, family or strangers.

Isn’t Love grand when you discover there was no need to be searching all your life it actually was within you. Simply reconnect to the love that you are and this can then be a reflection for others to feel this within them. Beautiful blog Adrienne and I do agree Love is fathomless.

“Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.” I am starting to connect with the truth of this. Loving myself is indeed all I ever wanted and to start to build this love affair with myself by supporting myself, letting myself be, appreciating all of me, is beautiful.

The beautiful simplicity of the true love that is within us all is felt so clearly in this article. “There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.” Thank you Adrienne.

While contemplating on your article and some of the comments, Adrienne, I felt that what stops us from embracing and accepting love fully is emotions we allow to occupy all the space within which otherwise will be available for love. Our body is amazing and wise-it listens to our commands and follows our impulses. So when we pay more loving attention to it, doing esoteric yoga, giving body the opportunity to rest and experience stillness, dealing with our hurts, appreciating life- it opens up and clears the space for love. Love which is waiting there to be felt and lived.

Something I connected with in your comment Elena. regarding what stops us from embracing love is the emotions we occupy. It may seem like a small thing, but something important for me, that it was the choice to not choose love, or separate from the love within me, that allowed the emotions in, in the first place, then they become a barrier to choosing love. The significance of this for me, is that whether it is the chicken or the egg, the fact of choosing love again, will clear the emotions already there and prevent more from coming in, which is what I have allowed in a big way. Before I understood this clearly, thanks to Universal Medicine, esoteric healing and workshops, I used emotions as an excuse and was able to justify making it hard to not choose love. Now I know if I am making it hard, thats not me, but a story I have bought into.

The greatest relationship I have is with myself. The love I am with myself is the foundation of the love I bring to everyone else around me. It was only when I was able to start loving myself that I was able to develop true loving relationships.

Joshua it’s interesting to read how for you ‘this love is fast becoming your deepest love affair’ as I too feel that my relationship with myself is slowly building into the kind of relationship that I could not have ever imagined existing with another, let alone myself.

It is truly gorgeous when we reach a point where we would never berate ourselves or have a bad word or thought about our bodies, or any part of who we are. Self love is Gold. When it is no longer a concept but a lived experience, life changes completely and nothing is insurmountable. Glorious we are from the inside out – that’s for sure.

Beautiful Adrienne, ‘I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.’ I can very much relate to this, I lacked self-worth and was always looking for recognition and approval, i wanted so much to be loved, but I did not appreciate the amazing qualities that I have, this is changing now and I am appreciating myself and what i bring more and more.

I know that the greatest love is within me because I feel it in my life everyday. The moment I step away from what I feel inside, because something out there looks better than I have in here, that’s when I stumble. I can fool myself that it would be better if I had this or that, and look at them, they look so good, I should have that too, and when I do it will all be better – and there I am gone – lost in the land of ‘I’m not enough’.
Fortunately for me, these times don’t happen much and don’t last long, as I have a great loving relationship with myself as my foundation. It is easy to think that we are not enough as we are – the whole world is set up to tell us this – but I can tell you now – it’s all a lie. We are all far more than ‘enough’.

Adrienne, this is exquisite. As I read your blog i melted into my own love, trusted me more and more and let go of the trying that i carry around with me thinking I need to be more, better, different. We have an amazing love within us, this is so very true for I have felt this with my whole body to my very core. It is now about accepting this love in full, knowing this is who I am and not all the false pretences and notions of who i thought I was and had to be, having disconnected from this well of love within, in the first place.

Gorgeous Adrienne, I have found that when I drop into my natural stillness this love is simply there and as you say “Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be”.
I have found how many ideals, beliefs, and investments I have been imposing upon myself, creating a pattern of always bettering myself, pushing forward and never feeling enough. But when I truly let go of all of these, and surrender to what is there already, the love is untouched from the beginnings of time.

Lovely blog Adrienne. Love has been a subject that has been misunderstood and misrepresented. What you wrote ” The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” Is a great marker to gauge its original authentic meaning of the word.

A very powerful blog, these words leapt out of the page for me
“When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour. This is what I have known love to be.”
Most of us if we are honest with ourselves know this to be true, I remember myself as a child always looking for approval, becoming addicted to someone telling me I was approved of and never feeling I was enough.

Today as I read this again the message for me is. The love that is within and connect to this. The completeness and self nurturing of this. Not the external validation of it out side of us. And the trappings of its mercy.

Those words, ‘the depth of my love is fathomless’ are absolutely true. When you are connected with you and feeling your own love, you feel a completeness within that love, but also a feeling of so much more to be revealed. And that just keeps you wanting to come back for more and more of you. Love is our forever source of heaven.

Completely inspiring post Adrienne, gorgeous how you describe the silky feeling that Love is, the ease with which it holds, the delicateness with which it feels, such a treasure to cherish – I want to wear it immediately and never take it off! This is who we are, never ending great wells of Love, with the ability to pour forth waters of everlasting truth, eternally.

“This loveliness is what I have begun to trust as being me.” This is the key as we are deeply familiar with other versions of me that are not really me but, as you rightly state, versions that carry the trademark of survival. It will get one day when we will really grasp the enormity of this and of the depth we have to go to truly and utterly renounce it to return to our most natural state of being.

This is just what I needed to read today. Although I know in my head (and many times have felt in my heart) that love is within me, at times the long term belief that I need to find it outside or work for it takes over. I am starting to ask myself “if love is inside me what does that feel like? Who am I when I start from knowing I am love – what is my way of expressing that love?” This does feel like an endless love affair I can have with myself.

So true Marcia. And when we start to truly feel that we are in fact EVERYTHING we have EVER been looking for then imagine how we will care for ourselves?
The seeking will seize. The ‘trying’ will end and date night will take on a whole new slant!

Adrienne reading your blogs are always a direct connection to love, thank you.
“The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” It’s amazing how we think love is a doing word, coming in and out. Even accepting unloving behaviour because it’s attention and then we can accept very bad behaviour because it’s still attention. These as you say have become survival techniques and have nothing to do with love.

I find it so inspiring when I meet someone who deeply loves themselves. It is reflected in the way they walk and live and how they meet you, as they see you equally the same. When I was growing up through school if you showed any love or respect for yourself or confidence in who you were you were told that you ‘loved yourself’ or that you were ‘up yourself’ which was considered a put down. I can still see this belief and pattern of behaviour playing out today. We need to re-define the term that describes someone that ‘loves themselves’ as something that is to be celebrated as there is so much to love and celebrate about ourselves.

I agree Carola, there is so much to be celebrated when we love ourselves. I too experienced the being “up yourself” scenario in my school years, designed to bring down our self-esteem if it happened to show it’s face! What was also happening in schools was a protection covered up by false “loving yourself” which was also misread. Bringing the truth of our innate inner love into the younger years in life would make the most enormous difference to the self-worth of our up and coming generations.

Gorgeous Adrienne, ‘We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression.’ This is such an inspiring blog, rather than having comparison and judgement with each other, it is lovely to read how we are all this equal love.

It feels so lovely to return to your beautifully tender blog today Adrienne and I love the fact that I too have discovered that the love that I had been searching outside of me for, for so long, is actually within me and that it: “ is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone”.

Adrianna, I loved this bit – “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” It’s like you’re not constantly on edge when living a life based on love- no survival mode, it just happens.

This is beautiful Adrienne and such a inspirational sharing to connect to our beauty and love within us all.I love how you say “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.” and i totally agree finding this within is simply beautiful and real love inside and can then be felt everywhere with everyone.

Adrienne I love the fact that you state that love is both complete and always within. When you consider all the wasted pursuits of millions of people over the years who have gone in search of love and yet it was always there in it’s full unadulterated glory,it would actually be quite comical if there wasn’t so much pain involved !

I really get this quote, and it has been my experience “This loveliness is what I have begun to trust as being me, especially in the face of all the ways I have lived that have not been me. All these ‘not me’ ways have been built and honed over a lifetime to help me survive in the world as I knew it.” I really appreciate how you write about learning to trust the ‘loveliness’ as being you. I have had this feeling over the last few years and it feels amazing, I live with joy, it is a gorgeous feeling, I am learning to Love myself, for just being me, and so am able to share this love and connection with others, because I live it everyday.

Our acknowledgement to the love we are within, clearly shows we are simply re-connecting. The love is there waiting, we simply choose to re-connect. It is not something we need to find or attain, because like you have shared Adrienne we simply choose to acknowledge as it is already within.

“We need not go anywhere to feel love, only the choice to feel all that is already here within us. So simple, Thank you Adrienne.” A quick exposure to show me to what extent I am actually willing to feel the core of love that is already within my body which is cool.

Being at the mercy of everyone else’s opinion is an exhausting and debilitating way to live and certainly the way I’ve lived for the better part of my life. Now that I’ve also connected to that love within and changed my relationship with me, everything in my external world has magically changed to reflect that deeper loving way I am with myself. Not trying anymore – just being.

I read blogs like these and then explore how I feel about myself and I know there is a depth of feeling which I have not yet allowed myself to feel – not in a consistent way. After a particularly beautiful healing session I can feel my tenderness, but then life kicks in and the hardness creeps in again. Slowly, every so slowly, the awarenesses are unfolding – my breathing is generally more gentle, my voice is less harsh, my touch on everything is more tender, and sometimes, when I walk, I can feel all of me. These are moments to treasure, and the more I honour them, the more consistent they are becoming. Sometimes I compare myself and feel jealous when I hear other women claim the deep joy they are living, for I know that I am not living that, but I also know it is because of the choices I make in my daily life.

Beautiful Carmel… I love your honesty here. As I begin a journey of discovering the true love within I am realizing how vital it is that I appreciate me in every moment. Although I know this to be true, to live in the consistency of this deep appreciation for myself I struggle with so it is great to have this reminder.

Thank you Adrienne for this amazing blog. I just can’t get enough of the line ‘There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.’ Very inspiring to me.

This is so beautiful and true Adrienne. To read this is to be supported into the silkiness you describe, claiming what is naturally within me. This offers the immense power that living from our own loveliness reflects out to others so anyone can feel in themselves the natural loveliness they are.

I can completely relate to what you share, I too looked for love and approval outside of me, never connected to the love that was within. I expected others to show me love or say they loved me, I went out of my way to get it. I would say yes to people even if I wanted to say no, I would continue to work hard even though I was tired and exhausted. I was constantly seeking for love and wanted everyone to like me, even though inside I felt very lonely. I never even looked at my own beautiful qualities I had, until I met Serge Benhayon and through his presentations started to understand my self worth. Only then did I started to connect to the beauty and love within

I find myself so influenced by the outside world and what others think at times, Adrienne so I found what you have shared as so poignant. There is a sadness in me that I do not connect to the love within me more often but only allow myself glimpses of what is possible. Thank you for sharing what is possible for all of us.

Loved returning to your inspiring sharing Adrienne. I tend to overlook my inner beauty also in the searching outside myself for acceptance. Then I remind myself that we are all equal Sons of God and Love is already within me as it is in all of us.

This sentence stood out for me “When I choose to look outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown.” This is so true. When I was a child I felt very confused; I couldn’t figure out why people were feeling and behaving so different to myself. Like most of us I gave up and went on a mission to get recognized and seek love from outside of myself. I tried everything and knew this craving for love wasn’t the answer; there was a strong feeling within me that knew there was more to life than this. It was at this time I came across Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I felt love within me and a glimpse of what was possible. I have not looked back as I continue to build upon this exquisite love that is inside of me.

I agree Heidi. This blog feels so freeing and shows us that there are not obstacles to love when in comes from within. When we choose to get caught up in the beliefs of others there is no opportunity to stop and make sense of what doesn’t feel right. We often invest in a home or a car but how often do we stop to invest in loving the greatest love within.

Love your blog Adrienne. ‘When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown’ – This is an extremely good point, and relatable for an awful lot of people. How we look OUTward for approval that we are beautiful, funny, amazing etc. instead of INward. Thank you for sharing!

I just love the truth in the title of this article, ‘The Greatest Love is Within Me’ when we have a love affair with this love, our searching is well and truly over, as what we were looking for has being within us all along. Adrienne thank you, your blog have giving me much to ponder on.

Adrienne reading your blog again today, what stood out for me is where you share “the depth of my love is fathomless. It is there within me always and completely, regardless of whether I choose to connect to it or not.” This is gold, and is a something I will be aware of as I go through my day.

Adrienne this is beautiful “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.”.So many of us forgot that love is within us and is normal. Instead we go outside of us looking for love from other people. But if we just stop to connect to ourselves and feel what we already have, the beautiful love within us is felt

The relationship with self – is the grandest love affair there is. Wow YES Adrienne so true, and it feels amazing and so golden to be knowing of this. Imagine if as young kids we grew into adulthood knowing where the greatest beauty lives – inside us, not and never outside. What relationships would we form with others; how would we work together or do business; marry or raise the next generation….How would mankind look if we lived life with this innate love of self and so all others. Divinity.

Adrienne, beautiful, all that striving and the treasure is within – it’s just for us to nurture. One I am learning more daily. Thank you, your exquisite writings on the loveliness within allowed me to connect to me just now!

‘When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour.’ I am seeing just how imprisioning it is to cast favour on one over another. When I observe myself in this pattern I notice it is actually more about me not letting in and appreciating who I am in the presence of. Of course when I don’t appreciate myself there is no way I can appreciate others. Love favours no one it is the ultimate equaliser.

Adrienne this is such an inspiring blog. “All these ‘not me’ ways have been built and honed over a lifetime to help me survive in the world as I knew it.” how awesome to become aware of these and gently let them go knowing that we are so much more in truth and to begin living the love that we are.

So true Shelley, there are a myriad of behaviors we took on over a lifetime to fit into a crazy world. The more we can catch these ‘not me’ ways, see them completely as un-loving and not belonging, we can make another choice more respectful of others and ourselves.

What you have so divinely shared here Adrienne I know also to be true. Sadly for the majority of my own life I have searched everywhere outside of myself for love, and although now I can feel a mere inkling of what is available for me to connect to the love inside of me, I know now too it will be for the rest of my life I will be discovering it.

A beautiful reminder this morning Adrienne to appreciate all of me – in your words I constantly “overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have”. How freeing to learn to Self love again. The tiresome search of looking for something outside of myself that, was already within just waiting patiently to be re-ignited.

The complication of love is often fed to us with the bombardment of the media or how we have seen it modelled by another in our early years. This blog hits the mark on looking no further than from within as the pool of reflection is deep if we take the responsibility to jump in.

The silkyness feeling is something we have missed for a while, when we connect back to that and see it is actually us and within us 24/7 it is the grandest thing of all.. it needs no recognition from anything else, humming its own song for you the words you know

The greatest love is already within me. Reading this blog I can feel the simplicity and also at the same time how much there is a lack of accepting that such simplicity is possible. So then the question arises – how does accepting the simplicity of life feel? It feels much steadier than the complications and the avoidance. And now I wonder – how does it feel to accept this simplicity more and more? Thank you Adrienne.

Choosing the Love within ourselves is a CHOICE, something I am reminded of more and more each day. I have a choice to go with the thoughts in my mind or to be with the beauty and warmth present on a daily basis within my body. More and more the feeling of Love and warmth within is felt before any thoughts or worries about my outer appearance.

So true Adrienne, your title reveals everything and the more we accept that great love is within us and not something we need to aspire, strive and search for outside ourselves, the deeper we connect to and appreciate our innate loveliness and tenderness.

“I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have”. Wow! Adrienne this sentence brought me to a ‘stop’ moment. Having been searching for so many years for ‘something’ to fill a large gap within me, and that something just happened to be self-love. Self-love being a part of my everyday has completely opened my life up to a whole new way of being, experiences, choices and so very much more. But, the one thing I’d frequently did not do is to really appreciate ‘those beautiful qualities I already had within’ whilst on this journey of re-discovery. So it is with appreciation I say thank you Adrienne for this awesome sharing.

It feels simply gorgeous reading your post. It really amazes me how simple it truly is when we make it so complicated and hard work while choosing not to connect this very essence we all hold within. When I was trying to look for love outside of myself, I had an image and expectation for what it would look like. I thought saying ‘yes’ all the time and never saying ‘no’ was love. I thought being nice was love. I thought having a partner was being in love no matter how horrible the person might be. There was no known feeling that I could connect to that would confirm what love was. Now, it’s such a joy to feel it right here inside me by simply choosing to connect.

Thank you Adrienne, for a very beautiful blog about the amazing beautiful and love that lies within the inner heart of every human being. A wise man once said, that there is no greater joy, than being me.

The love we have within us is amazing. I feel I have only felt the very beginning of the love I hold. This gets deeper the more I allow it. Sometimes I get waylaid by my own doubt and distractions but this love it always there to come back to and always there to go deeper.

Hi Adrienne, I love coming back to your blog, it’s simplicity revealing the Truth of our innate Love, always there within us. Just to let go and be, to connect to this Love and find out how deep and beautiful we all really are. All of our expressions of this grand Love are awesome to behold as we all together make up the whole.

“The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness. The depth of my love is fathomless”… I haven’t experienced this silkiness you speak of Adrienne, but I know it is there, hidden under the layers of protection. For me, I am just dipping my toe into this ocean of fathomless love and what I HAVE glimpsed is so awesome it takes my breath away and supports me in trusting that the more I love me, the more this endless love becomes accessible. Once we meet ourselves then we meet others and this just feels so glorious, it’s almost too good to be true, but it is!

This is a beautiful Blog Adrienne, and while it is yours, it is shared for everyone. I really enjoyed reading: “When I begin to acknowledge this Love I start to see and know myself differently. There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.” this describes so well what is love and what is not so that we have a clear choice.

Incredible Adrienne, wow, I am touched and deeply felt the truth. I was struggling with when I did things wrong, especially when it was with others.. When you said about depending your acceptance of other their smile, look, or words.. I could feel that that was it, that was the trick, as I actually feel it is my turn now to start to appreciate and deeply accept myself, even if things go horribly wrong or people look at me like I am trash. Always make sure that I know who I am and that I have deeply confirmed every single (new) layer = that is acceptance to me. And I can feel how VERY much I need to start this today. I am now, and it feels already so powerful!

‘Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.’ – Just gorgeous Adrienne and this saying should be on billboards everywhere for people to read – it is an absolute game changer. How amazing if we were told this truth as a child that the greatest love affair you will ever have is with self first – how different all our relationships would be.

If we all embarked on a quality ‘love affair’ with ourselves that valued our ‘greatest love within’ and was committed to building up our innate unique qualities I am pretty sure that the world would not be as hard and as callous as it is today. Maybe this is something we all should consider doing for we have all created this world that we live in and it is all of our responsibility to return it back to a place of truth, love and harmony.

Adrienne I love how you write.
‘ I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.’
If the whole world is experiencing this then imagine the world wide exhaustion? We are seeking something we already have. Reclaiming our self worth is key.

Thank you Adrienne, for a very beautiful blog about the love we are. I love these words “This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am. It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour.”

If we as a collective could really understand what is being shared here the world would start to change as we changed and became more accepting of ourselves.
“When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour. This is what I have known love to be. I went out of my way to get love and overrode the love I already was to do it: saying yes when I felt to say no; saying the nice thing when I felt otherwise; working hard when I felt exhausted; doing the right thing but feeling something was wrong; looking after other people but neglecting myself; getting good grades but feeling like a fraud. I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.

What you have said here is so true Adrienne Hutchins
“When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour. This is what I have known love to be.
I’m sure this has been the experience of most of us, I’m sure it starts as children when we try to get our parents or the teachers attention. In my experience this type of attention is never enough and always leaves you wanting more.

I too, Adrienne, lived life seeking love outside of myself in the doing and the being what others wanted, of me never knowing myself or the love that resided within me, until coming to Universal Medicine and starting the journey back to love, back to my love . The love that each and everyone holds deep within.

Whats more ‘We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression’. This is what makes us unique but at the same time equal. Beautifully expressed Adrienne.

” I over looked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have” A gentle reminder for me to really look in that mirror and appreciate the reflection I feel back. Such a beautiful sharing with us all Adrienne.

Such a beautiful understanding and truth you share Adrienne: “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” This allows me to simply be and appreciate me as I let go of attachment to others and outcomes, which allows them to simply be.

You describe very beautifully the two different ways to live – either to be connected to our love, what we are and life is coming towards us or we get lost in the outside world and looking for recognition, which will never satisfy us.

Recently I found a picture of me in my childhood, around 2 or 3 years old and what I saw in the picture was the love that you have shared here Adrienne. The love that I saw in the picture was not dependent on anything outside of me, it was just there and it didn’t even need to be mentioned, it was just love.

Yes Adele, I love what you share here, in particular these words, The love that I saw in the picture was not dependent on anything outside of me. It’s funny how you can know something, like this very fact, but hold it back from yourself, right when you really need it. Thank-you for this timely reminder.

So beautiful Adrienne – “The greatest love is within me” “The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness”. That beautiful connection to the love that we naturally are to which no outside influences can ever bring us.

“When I begin to acknowledge this love I start to see and know myself differently” and for myself it is at this point that I start to feel and see others differently too, opening up and allowing more love in feeling that reflection from those I meet.

Beautiful article to return to. It seems I have just begun to connect to this grand love that is me. I know that it is there, this is the first step. I also accept that I am that grand love, that is the next step. I also have many moments feeling that I am that love. Now it about building those moments into a solid foundation. The things blocking is still a little challenge: self-rejection and victimhood, both disrupting the building of the connection to this grand love. The first one destabilizes this connection, the second one makes me think I cannot do it, that it takes a lot of time, that there is something wrong with me etc. All rubbish thoughts, coming from a different source than this grand love.

Love is a form of livingness that can only be experienced from within. All that stuff about sending love, receiving love, giving love – forget it, it is an illusionary path. True love is an embodied state of being – that it is – based on an energetic choice to align to the essence of our divine origins. So yes, you can express love as a gesture – definitely – but you can definitely never send it, only inspire another to awaken to their own true state of being by being inspired by what they felt in you.

‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is.’ This captures beautifully the freedom from that self-imposed slavery we’ve created when we give our power away to external assessors of our own worth.

There is such a delicate exquisiteness in sitting here appreciating what you so lovingly share Adrienne. There is an intimacy here for ourselves to go deeper to the silkiness of our own love and an invitation to appreciate and understand that we are all absolutely equal and we all have this within us. Honouring this in ourselves and others offers a very loving open invitation for another to be able to choose the same.

‘When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown’….and when we choose to connect to and feel the quality of love that we all hold equally within, our expression comes from a place that is already full and vital.

It is true that when we live in needing approval and love to confirm us from outside- we are then at the mercy of how others see us and we can go up and down with this, however, when we know the love we are and hold true to this and confirm this for ourselves we are able to more consistently be this with others and that is when it grows and flourishes.

I remember typewriters too Adrienne. My mother had one and used it often to write up the church minutes and newsletters. But one of the wonderful things about the evolution of technology since then is that blogs such as this, expressing the truth about Love can be seen and read the world over. Learning that love is abundantly available to us all from within is a life changing realisation for anyone and thank you for sharing this wisdom here.

It is certainly true in my experience that connecting to the love in our hearts is about letting go of anything that we have created that is seeking or searching for love. When we seek love, we actually create the notion that we don’t have it. If you did have it, why would you be searching for it? But if we do all have that innate connection to love within us, then seeking it can be a negation of that innate connection and have the opposing effect to our intention of finding it. Yes, for me, reconnecting to love is about letting go of the search for love that negates the truth that we already have love and are love within.

‘saying the nice thing, looking after others but neglecting self…’ – these things are so familiar to me – but nice is not love, and neglecting ourselves certainly isn’t loving. I have been a ‘nice guy’ for a long time and dropping that has not been easy. But when we connect to the deeper truth of love within, there is no going back for being nice is clearly exposed as a self-serving seeking mechanism designed to keep a superficial peace but not to truly evolve or deepen relationships. Being nice has been a form of protection for me – but in using it, I have inadvertently ‘protected’ myself from connecting to love too.

Seeking approval and recognition never allows us to surrender to what is already inside of us, that does not need anything to confirm it. Most my life I agreed with most things others said, even if I felt the complete opposite… I avoided confrontation at all costs. Now I mostly say how I feel about a situation or if I agree or disagree about a topic and it is so simple.

Realising that the love we have been looking for ‘out there’ simply is within us is an amazing revelation and turns things upside down. We can be love in the world and not be fooled into seeking that which we already have any more. This transforms our relationships both with ourselves and with others for we no longer seek anything of them either. How awesome.

It is such a grand moment when we accept the truth that love is within us all equally, it was such a game changer for me and stopped this endless search for love outside of myself. Knowing this and living this brings a quality and joy to our life that supports and deepens all our relationships – especially the one with me first.

A wise elderly neighbour shared with me many years ago that the best relationship you could every have was with yourself. She discovered this in her late 70’s and said that the quality in the way she lived changed as a result. This blog is a reminder once again that… how can we be loving ,understanding patient, open and non judgemental with another if we are not willing to do this with ourselves first?

‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.’ This says it all . Any iota of struggle or survival and we are out, we’ve lost the plot so to speak. Where joy is not we are not. The love within allows us to feel the harmony and stillness in our body and connects us to the absolute Truth.

This blog makes it so clear that the love we are is the only truth to be lived in and by – why would one ever raise the anchor to be toss around on the whim of others? What I really love about this realisation is that when we are anchored in the solid foundation that is us, we become a solid foundation for others.

Thank you Adrienne, your words are full of beauty. . . full of love. It is quite crazy the way we go out of our way to ‘get love’ and in the process override the love we already are to do this. . . yet this way of being is the norm: saying yes when we feel to say no; saying the nice things rather than expressing our truth; pushing on when we feel exhausted; doing ‘the right thing’ while feeling to do otherwise; looking after other people by disregarding our self . . . This is what we choose to do to win approval from the outside when the love we crave is within us all along!

This love is so grand yet so common…I love how this line shared the simplicity of love and that there are pictures of how this can be for everyone. What does feel true from the writer is how simple it can be to connect to this when we put aside all the worries and concerns that often cloud the potential we can live.

In the search for emotional love we find nothing but complication, yet the majority of humanity is forever seeking it, over and over again, whereas there is absolutely no complication, just simplicity, in true love; “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine”.

This is surely the wisdom of the ages. Even the first line and title “The greatest love is within me” is a stop you in your tracks revelation. One of the most beautiful things about love I am learning is how profound it is for others to just feel it in another, words are not needed, we can fill the space between another and ourselves with love – this speaks volumes.

This sharing is perfect for me right now as I am struggling a little with wanting acknowledgement/approval for what I do but it is all within. I can feel the dullness in my body when I am feeling this way and it affects my sleep!
I am more than enough just being the love that I am and this is what I am going to reflect today.

Thank you Anne, I’ve just seen how I have been looking for acknowledgment/ approval for what I have done and noticing how exhausted I have been feeling. I have been needing extra sleep and feeling quite heavy when I wake. A beautiful reminder to catch myself when I start to look for recognition.

its an interesting thing that we can set ourselves up in life to be dependant on the recognition of others, in all it’s forms, to feel that we are of worth, are doing good and are a good person and how this collapses when we either don;t get that recognition or something else happens where we end up questioning the truth of our worth. But as you say Adrienne, our worth is already intact without relying on anything from another. We actually begin life full of our own magnificence and I we need to do is re-connect to this. It’s actually never lost, even though we may be searching for it everywhere during our lie.

It is so beautiful to feel the confirmation of being Love in your own body, the silkiness you describe is so delicate and exquisite, truly a way to be in the world despite our imperfections. It is possible to build upon this and live it more and more just by simply allowing it, breathing it and feeling it. Loved reading this blog, Adrienne.

This love is in everyone, and when I am not living this love within me it reveals itself through the fact that I then don’t see the love in others. Great comment Adrienne – “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.” and I would add that love also has no connection to security…. which is often seen in the push and drive that can come in when life becomes all about a picture of security… getting a house, car, job, getting married, having kids, becoming rich etc. We can still have all this but with a foundation of love as the basis for the decisions we make.

So beautiful, great words of wisdom ” The greatest love is within me”, there is no need to look for love outside of us, it is about us returning back to the love within, connecting to what we already are. These are the words of wisdom Serge Benhayon shares.

It is unusual to think of amazingness as ordinary when this is so far from the normal we all live… just as it is unusual to look for love inside when we are taught to believe it comes from outside. To discover the opposite of normal is true is deeply empowering and life altering… for the choice to obtain what we have always wanted becomes simple through connecting to what has been within us all along.

“We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression.” Adrianne this struck me again for the simplicity, and the fact that we are love. Without knowing this fact we wander far and wide to find love…. all the time a simple truth has been kept from us, disempowering our connection to our well of love within.

‘It is where I get to meet me on the inside. Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be. The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness.’ As I read these words I felt myself surrender and felt the the silkiness as I allowed myself to be. It is there always waiting without judgement for each and everyone of us to connect to.

It is through self love that we deepen the connection to the love within ourselves and from this connection are able to express this love outwardly and as we do this we realise that there is no end point only a forever deepening as we surrender more to the love that we are.

Since I learned to accept that the true source of Love is within me, all my relationships have transformed because I no longer feel the need to seek love from them, but to share love in and through them. It is a very simple shift from living life ‘outside in’ to ‘inside out’ – but it is a very profound shift as such simple things often are. Today, I walk in the world knowing I am here to be love not to seek it and this has made a world of difference.

‘All these ‘not me’ ways have been built and honed over a lifetime to help me survive in the world as I knew it.’ I can really relate to this. I am now letting go of a perception of the world I have created that is not true that justifies and perpetuates my ‘not me’ ways. This sometimes feels uncomfortable though it is a far from pleasant way to live and only comfortable because I know it’s predictable ways. Opening up to a way of living through connecting with the love that I am is the way. I really appreciate reading this article, to not give up on the love that I am by seeking it from outside of myself.

‘I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.’ I can relate to this way of living Adrienne, but am now appreciating more and more the innate loveliness that we all are.

Adrienne, I love how you highlight the vast difference between the false version of love we aspire to, outside of ourselves, and the greatest love we all have nestling within us. The false one feels cold and end gaining and the true one has a warmth and a gentle flow to it. It beggars belief why we would ever choose the outer form of love over the vastness and richness of our inner love.

This greatest love that is within us all is a great medicine to all kind of issues we have as human beings with confidence, anxiety and self-worth. With most of these issues we try to find the answers outside of us but I found and have heard other find too that this inner knowing of being enough, ok and simply amazing is the only way to heal these.

And no matter what is going on in the world around us and the circumstances we may find ourselves in, the fact that we are love and can not only connect to this but live this connection can change immeasurably that perception of what is going on outside. Not only does this feel incredible but it’s a responsibility in which we live, because no matter what we share the way that we are, with everyone around us.

The love affair that we can have with ourselves potentially surpasses anything that is possible with another person. It not only has the power to change everything about our lives it also can transform all our relationships with others allowing them to be based on true love, for the truth is we cannot love others unless we first love ourselves.

‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.’ No struggle this is something I truly have to accept and allow having this in my life, no struggle!

In full illusion we look outward for the flame that burns within. Re-connecting with this love (our Soul) re-ignites the fire that can never truly be put out. It is indeed a great joy to come home to this warmth.

This is another great blog Adrienne, yes looking for love outside ourselves is a trap, ‘When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok’, it is never ending. Whereas connecting to our love within is gorgeous as you share, ‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.’

It may be a funny analogy but I often consider that seeking love outside of ourselves is a bit like a domestic appliance that is unplugged from the electricity. The vacuum cleaner isn’t much use unless it is first connected to the source of power. If we are all looking outside for the love we are apparently seeking, then who is bringing the love to the world? It makes so much sense to me and is confirmed by my own experience that we are to choose to be love, in that inner most connection first and then be the livingness of love – rather than seek it outside. I’ve done the latter for long enough now to know it doesn’t really work. We may have happy moments but not truly loving ones. No, the source of love is within us, as many truly wise teachers have told us throughout history – it is time to hear them.

‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.’ This encapsulates beautifully the struggle we often choose by looking outside of ourselves for love and the pressures that brings whilst all along the greatest love is within is just waiting to be connected to and embraced in all its divine splendour.

This is a timely read just at a time when I am not allowing myself to feel the loveliness of me and just be but instead feel an old momentum running of not being or feeling enough or looking for stresses in life that in truth are not really there. Thank you, I can feel a change and shift in my body from reading this reminding me to instead return to the love within that I know and not look for anything ‘wrong’.

It’s a strange thing when we choose entertainment, distraction, excitement over love, the one thing we constantly seek and ‘ news flash’ it’s a source we have 24/7 access to, all we need do is acknowledge and tune into it. Once felt nothing else feels close to the all embracing feeling , a tender loving hug from within, which has to come out and play.

Thanks Adrienne, I can feel as a woman I still have thoughts of needing a man to fulfil me and so then when I approach relationships it is from a need not from bringing all of me to the relationship and thus the foundation of inequality is set.

Absolutely that silkiness as you call it here is such a beautiful place to be inside myself, warm, loving and without end when I don’t spoil it by disconnecting from it or bringing unloving thoughts. Feeling the effect of this on others in reflection is what completes it as a Joy to behold.

The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end. This resonates with me today, as an old pattern of mine has popped up to clear which is around survival – can I survive on my own, am I good enough, not deserving….. which puts me into this drive to do more. But as I write I can feel these old thoughts no longer have a hold on me….

Adrienne, I love the title, ‘ The greatest love is within me’, expressed simply and beautifully.
To experience this inner quality of true love within me is exquisite, to know this same love is available to all profound.

Love is always joyful, it is never complicated or hard, it never has expectations or wants, it is surrender to every moment with no picture of security, expressing itself completes that moment. If everyone of us, without difference, is love, how much of our true self are we living from the inside out every day?

This is a beautiful sharing Adrienne,
When we consider that love comes from within, it actually makes sense to a lot of sayings in life. Like ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words cannot hurt me’, or, ‘you cannot love another unless you love yourself’. The thing is though these sayings, along with others can be said, but not felt to be truth, until we feel our love from within.

It seems to me it’s the lack of appreciation of the qualities that we already have that keep us searching for love on the outside. Then as you rightly say we are at the mercy of everyone else’s opinion of us. When we are children it’s our parents love we crave and when it is not forthcoming it starts us off on the road of seeking love because somehow we don’t feel the love we have inside us has any value. For if it had our parents would have seen the value of it and loved us.

So simply and beautifully put Mary. This appreciation of which you speak, appreciation for the qualities we already have is a lovely way to open up to a more expansive relationship with ourselves and with others.

“The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.
This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time.” This is so true and beautiful, connecting to this love is so normal. There is no struggle or fight, it is a continuous joyful feeling within us, its there all the time for us to connect too.

You bring such a gorgeous simplicity to what love is Adrienne… and I especially love your quote… “The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.”

‘the love within has no connection to survival’ this is true and yet we ignore it until one day we feel we are missing something and find ourselves looking within and there it is and was, ready and waiting for us to connect to and live it.

I am learning how I often get caught up in the outside world and let myself go in this- what happens around me impacts on how I feel at the end of each day (and often even before going into the day). However I am learning that if I focus on me and take care of how I am and surrender in my body then the stuff out there just happens and doesn’t effect how I feel. I am more able to observe it and respond.

‘ I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.’ What is described in this blog is a simple reminder of the exquisite sensations we have when we allow ourselves to feel who we truly are. Why look outside when such beauty is so readily available inside? This is a gorgeous blog and so relevant for me today.

When you do connect and move with the love that is inside of you it gives you the grace to to observe life and not be knocked around by it. I find when I connect to this I am able to hold my own rhythm throughout the day and this offers a greater support to those around me.

The beauty and knowing of the love we are shines out from this very real sharing “Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.” So true and the appreciaton of this – we are love – is everything .

‘The greatest love is within me. When I accept the possibility of this I can begin to choose to connect to this love instead of seeking it outside of myself through recognition and acceptance from people, places and things around me.’ All too often do we fall for the dazzle of what the world offers us in terms of acceptance and recognition, without having any true connection to what love is and can be in our lives. We are made less by our drive to look outside, while burying and ignoring what is within all along – the greatest love we could possibly consider exists.

“I went out of my way to get love and overrode the love I already was to do it: ” I have been noticing this behaviour of mine lately with my study and assignments. I feel myself squeeze things in, be nice, do what is asked for and I could go on, all to get approved and be liked, be the good student, the reliable, ‘responsible’ etc. This is never met and keeps me exhausted and a little depressed. The only way really is to feel the greatest love is within me and it is my choice only to feel it and claim it or not. Just letting myself be silly and cute and beautiful.

The love within is so beautifully expressed in your blog Adrienne; I really appreciate the truth you have conveyed here, thank you;
“It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour”.

“When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown.” Wow, so simply put but exactly what we all live as our normal with our self-esteem firmly attached to what we get back. No wonder the rates of depression are as they are, it is exhausting constantly looking for approval with no chance of getting back what we are looking for.

Often, we place so much emphasis on “feeling amazing” and we look down on the negative feelings, making ourselves feel even worse every time they emerge on the surface. What if we stop seeing the negatives as negatives, and start accepting them? How will that affect our lives?

I love how you have expressed it here Adrienne, that love is in us all without measure or favour, and that’s the thing, the love we all seek is in us, all of us, no one is exempt; and it’s there ready and waiting to be expressed at any time. Our journey is often about learning to honour that and not give ourselves up to outside but taking the time to learn and understand the love we are and how we feel to express this in any way or moment, in how we are with ourselves and others. We are love, and from love and it’s our natural expression once we let go of all the ideas or imposts we may have of how love should be and instead just simply be the love we are.

Adrienne, this is very gorgeous, ‘This loveliness is what I have begun to trust as being me,’ I have been feeling this recently, I have come to realise that I am gentle, playful, and sensitive and that this the real me, now if I am emotional, grumpy and reactive it clearly feels alien to me and I know that I am not being myself and so I do not beat myself up and stay in this way for long as I know the truth of who I am.

In our openness to the possibility that there is more to us than what is currently being lived, we discover the more of us is the love we are within – an is inexhaustible, ever-deepening and magnificent quality that is as divine and as pure as the day we were born.

Yes if we are feeling any kind of struggle we have lost our connection to the love that is not just in us but permeates everything. Any tension we hold in the body keeps us away from this connection. It is beautiful to feel that connection returning as we surrender to it and from there the quality we can bring to anything we do.

The world sets us up from early childhood to believe that love has to be sought outside of ourselves and then we spend the rest of our lives in this trap because trap it is. Love cannot be found outside of ourselves, it must first be connected to inside us because at our essence we are that love. Then when we take that love to another it offers them the opportunity to connect to the love that they are. One day we will all know this and when we do the world will be a very different place.

‘The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end’. Adrienne here you have shared so clearly and so beautifully, how true love is a joyful stillness which is ever deepening.

The word here as used ‘normal’…”This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time.” for me is a settlement in the body, a return to something lived and felt, a knowing, we have many versions of normal in our lives and societies, however this knowing is something universal, that we all have access to and with….there are no bells and whistles it is a humble, truth, gentle and stilling experience to return to soul, and there is no doubt about it, it feels very normal.

That silkiness you describe is exquisite and asks nor wants for anything. To live in totally awareness of this is to honour the divine beings we truly are. Disturbing and denying this is a disturbance and denial of all the Universal grandness that is available.